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Pass Summit 2015, Day Two Keynote: Data Professionals and the Internet of Things

The keynote opened with Executive Vice President Adam Jorgensen, providing a PASS financial update and sharing his excitement on our growth and where PASS is headed. Next, Vice President, Marketing Denise McInerney thanked the many PASS volunteers that make events like PASS Summit possible. Denise also recognized outgoing Immediate Past President, Bill Graziano, for his extensive service and support to our community and presented the PASSion Award to this year’s winner, Lance Harra.

Afterward, Dr. Nehme took the stage, immediately beginning to build on her previous PASS Summit keynotes. This year’s topic was Data Management for Internet of Things (IoT), and Dr. Nehme, along with co-presenter Dr. DeWitt, gave us a broad rundown of IoT basics, the state of today’s IoT, what the future will hold, and where and how SQL Server fits. With a leap from 500 million Internet-connected devices in 2003 to a projected 50 billion devices by 2020, IoT solutions offer a wealth of potential but also face issues surrounding bandwidth, connectivity, data deluge, and storage constraints.

Dr. Nehme then handed the stage to Dr. DeWitt, who asked the audience “Why should DBAs care about the IoT?” Dr. DeWitt noted that as the amount of data is growing exponentially, DBAs will face the decision to “become part of the steamroller or part of the road.”

Drs. Nehme and DeWitt—while careful to reiterate that the discussion is still very much in the early and even theoretical phases—discussed the role of technologies such as Azure Machine Learning and SQL Server in the development of IoT. Noting that “IoT is a database issue, not just a networking issue”, the speakers explained that an understanding of, and ability to work with, data and data technologies will be vital as we move toward IoT on a broad scale. Dr. DeWitt also emphasized the importance of security by noting that Azure IoT solutions provide per-device identities that are used to authenticate all device-to-cloud events, and that having devices pull cloud-to-device commands reduces the potential attack surface.

In closing, Drs. DeWitt and Nehme noted that after many years of delivering the PASS Summit keynote, this year will be their final joint appearance at the event as they look ahead to different endeavors. Words would never express my gratitude for all their work and dedication they provided to the PASS community through the years.